Toll Roads and Interstates

[Orlong]

When President Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System, it was created to provide rapid transit for troops and defense vehicles as well as evacuation routes for disasters such as hurricanes, volcano eruptions, etc... So why is it legal for them to be tolled? Ill be damned if I should have to pay a toll to flee from an erupting volcano or a nuclear meltdown on Three Mile Island like we almost had in the 70s.

Additionally Interstate Highways were supposed to be funded by Federal money collected via fuel taxes, but somehow some of the the burden got shifted to the states over the years and, somehow, the government gets away with reallocating fuel tax money to fund bullshit like bike trails, subsidizing mass transit (mostly private companies) because people wont ride mass transit if they have to pay what a ride actually costs, rails to trails programs, and beautification programs.

Toll booths also slow down traffic and cause a lot of congestion especially if youre not using Easypass, and since Interstate highways are often the only convenient and fast way to get where you want to go youre forced to either pay the toll or waste 2 or 3 extra hours taking back roads and sitting at red lights as an alternative.

The tolls arent even affordable anymore. If you need to drive it every day. It now costs $1.80 (and this has increased every year for the last 5 years and is scheduled to increase every year for the next 5 years) just to drive from one side of the Susquehanna River to the other and its only about 5 miles, do this twice a day every day for work and it gets very expensive (almost $1000 a year just to go to freaking work!!). The only other alternative is to sit in gridlock for about 12 miles on Route 83 wasting 2 hours each way, or drive about 120 miles out of your way

Even more ridiculous is even with the ever rising tolls, the roads seems to never be in good shape. The Pennsylvania has been in near constant construction between Harrisburg and Philadelphia (I-76) for 20 years, and its been well over 10 years that they have been "repairing" the turnpike from the blue ridge tunnels all the way to Pittsburgh, and it still feels like your driving on a dirt road in many places, so you get to pay for the privilege of driving on a bumpy road that always has delays due to road work. Even in places where tolls were instituted to pay off bonds that were issued to build a bridge or road, they continue to collect tolls decades after the bond was paid off. That should be illegal!!

We already pay fuel taxes, vehicle registrations, license fees, inspection fees, and traffic fines to fund the maintenance of roads, we shouldnt have to pay user fees as well. Stop reallocating funds that are supposed to be used only for road maintenance, and charge the appropriate fare for a ride on mass transit. A 5 mile bus ride should NOT be only $1.25. Mass Transit fares should be by the mile rather than a flat fee.



It cost about 75 cents per mile to operate a car once you account for fuel, insurance, and maintenance on the vehicle, now add in a little more to pay the bus driver and they should be charging bus riders about a dollar per mile. Then they would be paying their fair share and will contribute to road maintenance instead of sucking money out of the funds

If the roads were privately built, then by all means, tolls would be appropriate but they are built and maintained by the government and we ALL use the roads even if we dont drive. With the exception of a handful of severely disabled people everyone rides on the roads in some way and as such should pay for it through taxes

[Belize]

Because rich people can dodge taxes, meaning there's less money to repair highways. Regardless, there's always a slow non toll highway next to the toll highway. You're paying premium to get around traffic.

Capitalism, bitch.

Also hi Oorlong, no time no see.

[Deleted]

Does any European socialist country have road tolls? I'm asking because I don't know. Finland definitely doesn't, but then again we're smaller than most US states as far as land mass goes.

[Orlong]

Because rich people can dodge taxes, meaning there's less money to repair highways. Regardless, there's always a slow non toll highway next to the toll highway. You're paying premium to get around traffic.

Capitalism, bitch.

Also hi Oorlong, no time no see.

There isnt always a slow no toll highway. There is often other routes but they dont run exactly parrallel to the toll road and often the other routes are less than 35 MPH most of the way because they cut through cities and towns with traffic and red lights. The rich using tax loopholes has nothing to do with road maintenance. Sure I guess the government could use other tx sources to pay for it, but its more of a case of the government diverting funds that are supposed to be used only on roadway infrastructure and using them to fund other shit like mass transit subsidization, rails to trails programs, and even funding state worker pensions like they did in Pennsylvania, because they had to replace the money that they diverted from the pension fund that they used to pay for something else

Roads dont fall under Capitalism due to the fact that they arent privately owned. They are government owned. The government isnt supposed to build roads to make a profit

Also Hello again Belize!

[McFuu]

Because maintaining roads is expensive, especially with every increasing strain placed on those roads. Interstates were able to have tolls for a long time now, sometime in the 50s I believe, the state has to apply for the ability to toll interstates though. Many got around this by renaming roads, ie; NJ turnpike, Penn turnpike. So while the roads may still show up as i95 or (iirc)i 676, they are actually state roads.

Obama also recently made it easier for states to toll interstate roads. So thank him. Honestly you should be happy for this, it's control back in the hands of states, smaller government. In reality the nhtsa will maintain its budget and states will squander funds, because government spending 101. Why be self reliant when you can lose the money and get more.

Tldr: if we don't get no tolls, than we get no rolls.

[Independent voter]

I like the automated systems were you have a transponder in your car and the toll gate recognizes it, charges your account and you don't have to stop.

I don't have a problem charging people who use the road for the road.

Then again out west we don't have toll roads.

[Orlong]

I like the automated systems were you have a transponder in your car and the toll gate recognizes it, charges your account and you don't have to stop.

I don't have a problem charging people who use the road for the road.

Then again out west we don't have toll roads.

You still have to slow down to use the transponder. While it may technologically be possible to have is scanned as you drive by at 65MPH, the toll booths have strict speed limits of 10 or 15 MPH as you drive through and get scanned. Do you also think its fair that someone using the Easypass transponder gets to pay $1.80 but a person who wants to pay cash has to pay almost $3.00 for the same toll? Thats how they do it in Pennsylvania. You want to pay cash, you pay a lot more. Why should someone pay $30 and get a transponder to take a trip to Philadelphia that will cost $15 in tolls, and then get charged another $15 to bring the transponder account back up to $30, and then not use it for another year until they want to take another trip to Philadelphia. They basically paid $45 for this trip

Many people want to pay cash because they dont travel the Turnpike enough to get a transponder. They require you to maintain a $30 balance on your account, and any time you drop below they automatically charge your credit card on file to bring it back up to $30, so your letting money just sit that you could use for something else, and if you use a debit card, they could charge it when youre not expecting it and cause financial trouble with bounced checks, declined purchases, etc..

Other people would rather pay cash because they dont want their travel to be monitored, or they dont want it known that they drove an average of 100MPH because it only took them 45 minutes to go from one exit to another that shouldve taken 65 minutes

[petej0]

Toll roads should be abolished. However politicians have found that they are a great source of revenues via corruption, so good luck with that fight.

[Ave07]

Im so glad the federal government is making transponders work in every state so we can have more toll roads built throughout the country.

[McFuu]

What does that graph mean by video? I know of multiple bridges in NY that will take a pic of the car and send the bill to your house, no toll booths. Hell with ez pass as long as a car is registered on my account I don't need the transponder, they take a picture of the car regardless, and charge my account accordingly. They don't advertise that it works this way, but for instances where an ez pass transponder is stolen, they don't erroneously charge your account. Also if the battery dies. Probably saved them a lot in paperwork.

[petej0]

You still have to slow down to use the transponder. While it may technologically be possible to have is scanned as you drive by at 65MPH, the toll booths have strict speed limits of 10 or 15 MPH as you drive through and get scanned. Do you also think its fair that someone using the Easypass transponder gets to pay $1.80 but a person who wants to pay cash has to pay almost $3.00 for the same toll? Thats how they do it in Pennsylvania. You want to pay cash, you pay a lot more.

This is only because these are older toll plazas which intermingle cash and ezpass. There are newer plazas that have express lanes where you no longer have to slow down, you can zip right on through going 65pmh. A good example of this is the mid-county exchange at the end of the PA NorthEast extension.

Many people want to pay cash because they dont travel the Turnpike enough to get a transponder. They require you to maintain a $30 balance on your account, and any time you drop below they automatically charge your credit card on file to bring it back up to $30, so your letting money just sit that you could use for something else, and if you use a debit card, they could charge it when youre not expecting it and cause financial trouble with bounced checks, declined purchases, etc..

I dont know how strict that is. I know I have driven through and gotten the Yellow "Low Balance" light because my credit card on file expired.

Other people would rather pay cash because they dont want their travel to be monitored, or they dont want it known that they drove an average of 100MPH because it only took them 45 minutes to go from one exit to another that shouldve taken 65 minutes

I have not heard of anyone getting a speeding ticket from this sort of tracking.

[Vash The Stampede]

You do all realize that Google Maps and Waze has a feature that allows you to avoid tolls. Usually only costing you 2-5 minutes of extra driving. Very rarely it adds a significant amount of time to get to my destination.

[Sunseeker]

Isn't this the same argument that college should be free, since those are tax-payer built institutions?

[abracmike]

Not looking forward to the the toll bullshittery when I'll be in Pittsburgh for a few days next month.
At least I have an IPass (which from what I understand is fully interchangeable with an EZPass) to use on the toll roads.
I may just use Google's avoid tolls option and deal with the extra 90min or so trip time just to avoid running up another $30 or $40 on the trip >.>
(If you're wondering why I live in Wisconsin and have an IPass, I visit family in Illinois ~8 times per year, so it does end up paying off in that sense).

As for the slow traffic thing, I think others already mentioned this, but just in case:
Old style boothes accomodating cash and transponder SUCK. At least Illinois has been creating more electronic only areas where you don't really need to slow down (well, to less than 60Mph at least), so maybe Pennsylvania needs to just get their shit together on that.

[petej0]

As for the slow traffic thing, I think others already mentioned this, but just in case:
Old style boothes accomodating cash and transponder SUCK. At least Illinois has been creating more electronic only areas where you don't really need to slow down (well, to less than 60Mph at least), so maybe Pennsylvania needs to just get their shit together on that.

They have, when its available. Most of the current older toll plazas dont have the room to accommodate splitting the faster e-zpass traffic from the slower cash lanes. However when plazas are rebuilt they do create highspeed e-zpass lanes.

[Maletalana]

There's always money in the bana...TOLL BOOTH ... stand!

[Orlong]

We don't ALL use the roads equally. We don't ALL use the toll roads either. As such the people using them are being taxed for their increased usage. Sorry for the logic, but it's pretty basic stuff.

Maybe paying a toll would be more acceptable if we received increased service over traditional roads instead of the same bumpy roads, constant road work, congestion, and overpriced food/fuel since they have you hostage on a toll road

[Adam Jensen]

You still have to slow down to use the transponder. While it may technologically be possible to have is scanned as you drive by at 65MPH, the toll booths have strict speed limits of 10 or 15 MPH as you drive through and get scanned. Do you also think its fair that someone using the Easypass transponder gets to pay $1.80 but a person who wants to pay cash has to pay almost $3.00 for the same toll? Thats how they do it in Pennsylvania. You want to pay cash, you pay a lot more. Why should someone pay $30 and get a transponder to take a trip to Philadelphia that will cost $15 in tolls, and then get charged another $15 to bring the transponder account back up to $30, and then not use it for another year until they want to take another trip to Philadelphia. They basically paid $45 for this trip

Many people want to pay cash because they dont travel the Turnpike enough to get a transponder. They require you to maintain a $30 balance on your account, and any time you drop below they automatically charge your credit card on file to bring it back up to $30, so your letting money just sit that you could use for something else, and if you use a debit card, they could charge it when youre not expecting it and cause financial trouble with bounced checks, declined purchases, etc..

Other people would rather pay cash because they dont want their travel to be monitored, or they dont want it known that they drove an average of 100MPH because it only took them 45 minutes to go from one exit to another that shouldve taken 65 minutes

You don't have to slow down on much of the New England interstate systems. We have high speed transponders that you can go through without slowing down.

I for one don't see why you're bitching about paying a fee of a few dollars every 200 or so miles, but hey, you're Orlong. So long as that money legetimately went towards the upkeep of the roads, why is it a problem? Nothing is free. Everything has a cost to maintenance.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe paying a toll would be more acceptable if we received increased service over traditional roads instead of the same bumpy roads, constant road work, congestion, and overpriced food/fuel since they have you hostage on a toll road

"Hostage on a toll road"

You're freaking hilarious, it's $2.

If you can't afford an extra $2 every few hundred miles, then you probably can't afford to be driving.

[Orlong]

I guess you'd prefer the road wasn't even there. Every part of the US system of roads/bridges and the like is in a bad spot. We didn't do the proper upkeep when we should have and as such we have the conditions we have now. Having less money to maintain those systems by eliminating tolls won't make it any better.

Maybe not, but using funds that are supposed to be used for road maintenance instead of diverting them to other things would definitely help, and finishing one job before you start the next would help make travel a lot less stressful and more rapid. There is absolutely no reason I can think of that a 10 mile stretch of a major highway takes more than a couple of years to rebuild yet we have multiple roads that have been under constant construction for the last 20 years. They start at one end and by the time they finally finish the other end, they start back at the beginning again and start redoing that end again. Are they using shitty materials?, doing a half assed job? poor design?, or is it contractors taking advantage of the Government and making sure there will always be work for them to overcharge for? Im guess its the latter.

Its not just roads either, hell theyve been working on the US Capitol building dome for over 3 years now. It really takes 3 years to clean and paint a damn dome? They build 50 complete Walmarts in that same time period

[zenkai]

Because maintaining roads is expensive, especially with every increasing strain placed on those roads. Interstates were able to have tolls for a long time now, sometime in the 50s I believe, the state has to apply for the ability to toll interstates though. Many got around this by renaming roads, ie; NJ turnpike, Penn turnpike. So while the roads may still show up as i95 or (iirc)i 676, they are actually state roads.

Obama also recently made it easier for states to toll interstate roads. So thank him. Honestly you should be happy for this, it's control back in the hands of states, smaller government. In reality the nhtsa will maintain its budget and states will squander funds, because government spending 101. Why be self reliant when you can lose the money and get more.

Tldr: if we don't get no tolls, than we get no rolls.

Tolls are usually put in place to pay for the road, they are suppose to go down once it's paid for, regular taxes is suppose to take care of maintenance. In most places I been too this actually happens but there are some places that keep them in place. OK is a perfect example. There are many highways where I lived that had tolls on them in the 70s, once they were paid off, there are no tolls. Louisville just built 2 bridges over the Ohio river and those will have tolls.